You May Want To Drive South To Drink Late

October 28, 1985|By Harry Straight of The Sentinel Staff

Most of Brevard County soon may be alcoholically dry after 2 a.m., but determined drinkers still can hop in a car and drive 338 miles south to the Boca Chica Bar on Stock Island, just one short bridge north of the Key West city limits.

It won't matter what time they get there. The Boca Chica Bar never closes.

Although it is just a leisurely six-hour drive from Brevard to Monroe County the two communities are light-years apart in their attitudes about bar closings.

As in most areas, cutting back on drunken driving is the fuel that flames the Brevard crusade.

Arrests for drunken driving are three times higher from midnight until 4 a.m. than from 8 a.m. to midnight in regions patrolled by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office BAT-mobile, an anti-drunken driving enforcement unit, according to department statistics.

But in Monroe County, things are different.

Opponents of the no-limit closing law failed when they tried to use the drunken-driving argument last year after the 27-year-old son of U.S. Rep. Dante Fascell was killed in an alcohol-related traffic accident on the Seven Mile Bridge.

Some residents lobbied county commissioners to set closing hours. But bar owners persuaded the commission to let them alone and the issue died.

Part of the reason is the county's character. A mixture of tourists, fishermen and gays gives the Sunshine State's most southern county a laid- back, do-your-own-thing lifestyle.

''I'm sure there are some fundamentalists out there who are interested in closing us down,'' said Boca Chica Bar owner Rick Berard.

''They were arguing that there were more traffic fatalities between 3 a.m and 7 a.m. But we got out the statistics and showed the county commissioners that wasn't true,'' he said.

The Boca Chica Bar may be one of the few in the state that stays open 24 hours, seven days a week. But like bars in most other communities, the Boca Chica is governed more by the response of its clientele than city and county ordinances.

For the 35-year-old Berard -- whose family has owned the Boca Chica for more than 25 years -- the early morning hours are a haven for people who work in other clubs.

When Key West bars close at 4 a.m., the Boca Chica fills with bartenders, waiters and waitresses, motel desk clerks and cab drivers. The drinks are cheap. The disc jockey rocks out from midnight to 7 a.m. and the chain-link fence on the wall and the bunk bed on the dance floor sparkle in the flashing lights.

By mid-morning, however, it is fishermen in port for a few days or ''the guys without a job'' who hunker down at the club's bar.

Berard said he stays open because the customers want it that way.

The story essentially is the same at the other end of Florida's east coast. Aubry Williams runs the oldest bar in Florida, the Palace Saloon in Fernandina Beach, the state's northernmost city.

There weren't any regulations when the bar opened in 1903, but now the Palace closes at 2 a.m. most nights.

At 8 a.m., however, it promptly opens again.

''Part of the reason for the hours is the clientele,'' Williams said. ''We have two mills that work 24 hours a day. Someone who works from midnight to 7 a.m. wants to stop by and have a drink just like the guy who works from 9 to 5.''

Williams understands why bars are among the most regulated businesses in the state.

''Alcohol is a substance that must be handled with care and reason,'' he said. ''You have to go through more checks in Florida to own a bar than to be a brain surgeon.''

Would he stay open longer if allowed?

''I doubt it. You stay open to meet the needs of the community, and the pressure would be there,'' Williams said.

Five years ago in Holly Hill -- a three-bar city on the outskirts of Daytona Beach -- voters decided clubs should close at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m., two hours after the Daytona Beach bars closed. Daytona Beach bars now stay open until 3 a.m.

In St. Petersburg, where bar closings have been set at 2 a.m., a city ordinance also regulates the hours for private bottle clubs -- which opponents of shorter hours say often crop up as an after-hours alternative.

In Miami Beach, closing hours are as much a factor of money as customers. A $750 license lets a bar stay open until 2 a.m., but if the club owner pays $2,500 to the city, the club can stay open until 5 a.m.